Hyacinth
by pedal
Summary: Shinichi is sick but finally gets to see Ran as himself. With a flower. Oneshot


Hyacinth

Written: May 2005

Disclaimer: If you sue me, you'll only get the moths that are eating my wallet... And if this is true, I can't possibly be Gosho Aoyama!

Dedication: To Tom. He was the first to read this story when it was just getting on its legs. It wouldn't be half of what it is without him. Thank you for being my beta and muse!

Hyacinth

By Pedal

It would be the last time I would see it. The most wonderful thing I ever witnessed was so rare. Her treat was me all together, but all I got was a look. Soon I lived for it.

My quiet, double knock sounded, and my hand slid halfway down the door. It fell against my leg, dropping the flower it had been holding. Watching it fall and stay there didn't faze me; I just needed to see her now.

"Come in!" My hand rose and fell once more, pulling down the handle as it went. At the same time I attempted to push the door open, it opened with her behind it. Soft purple from the setting sun nudged itself in around her.

Then there it was. What I had been waiting to see. As beautiful as Ran looked every time she made that face, I hated seeing it on her. It was the prettiest and most paining expression I had ever seen and ever would see. It was sad, shocked, happy, and confused, and she had it every time she saw me after I left. She was always about to cry, but never really did. This. Was what I lived for.

"Ran," I started and didn't finish. Sweat ran into my mouth, mixing with the metallic sticky taste of the blood suddenly there. I gagged and shook forward, covering my mouth.

"Oh my god! Shinichi!"

As soon as I had changed, I showed up at her door. My body, however, was weak, as per usual when I did this. It could've been worse than usual, but damned if I could tell. Nodding, I slowly approached her, only realizing then that I had been leaning on the doorframe for support. She had to run and catch me when I took that one step. Our bodies collided with a thud, and we sunk to the floor quietly. Her shaking became the last thing I knew; the noise around us grew, breathing, beating, rustling, voices, anything mixed together louder and more complicated in a jumble of thunderous, frightening noise. It winked out to nothing seconds later.

When I woke up, she wasn't there, and my body remained. What had I taken that time? It got too blurry, and it hurt too much to try and remember. Kogorou dropped to the floor on the balls of his feet in front of me, wherever I was, and felt my forehead. Even that hurt. "Where'd you come from, Kudou-kun? Hell?" A washcloth slapped lightly down on my forehead in place of his hand.

In my first response, I growled. My elbows did little to prop me up slightly. "Wouldn't you have seen me there, Old Man?" I said just above a whisper. He stood and walked out of view. The couch being the only thing in their apartment low enough for someone to have to crouch to meet my level, I concluded that that's where I must've been. "Where's Ran?" It was too quiet for her to be there. That, and she'd be by my side.

No answer to either question. My voice probably sounded quieter than I thought. Kogorou sounded awfully loud to me. A white noise, like a full-blown running faucet blasted in my ears plugged them up, explaining the butchered sense of hearing. "Detective Mouri," I tried again, "Where's Ran?"

The almost deafening sound of a hand smacking down on wood startled me. "I said get some sleep, kid!" he said from his desk, where he had disappeared in the bright orange sunlight.

My hands braced on the armrest as I prepared to sit up, which proved difficult. "Damn you. I'll have to go soon. I came here to see her, and I'm going to see her." All of my senses were fogged. It was hard to do anything. "Need to see... Ran..."

Kogorou sighed and walked back over to me. As he pushed me back down on the couch, he pulled the light blue fleece blanket from Ran's room on me. Until then, I hadn't noticed it was there. "She's out filling the prescriptions you had on you. She just left, so she'll be back in a little more than half an hour. Go back to sleep." His smell drifted off him in a wave of alcohol and smoke. Its staleness told me he hadn't touched either in about half a day in watch of me. I wrinkled my nose.

Again, he stood and walked away. "No, I don't have that much time. Where did she go?" Prescriptions. Either Haibara or Doc must've sent them with me as a painkiller and antibiotic for the temporary antidote in my system. How long was it going to last for there to be the need for prescription drugs? And again, I sat up but really couldn't on my own.

"No chance. Maybe when you wake up, you'll stop slurring your words and make a little sense." And because of the noise his chair made, I could tell he had gone back to his desk. A cold pain in my chest thrashed, and I gave out. I could smell the flower...

For the second time, I woke up. This time to Ran rubbing the front of my neck. Something slid down my throat and I abruptly sat up, coughing. This surprised both of us. Once upright, I instinctively looked around, and it became evident that Kogorou had gone. I quickly forgot the observation since I had Ran right there. Only that mattered then. Light and sound around me dulled, and nothing but her would be able to get through.

Right away, Ran's composition returned, at least enough to put a glass of water to my lips. Her sad, happy, worried eyes fawned over mine for only a second longer.

My head was back on the couch suddenly, and she had disappeared along with my being awake. My whereabouts had become harder to see, colder, and thankfully, quieter. "What time is it?" I asked when I could.

"Dark," came the patient answer from where I couldn't see. For the most part, I was sure the sun had been up a second before. Now, dimness claimed the apartment. Its only light sources, I figured, were the moon and faraway dying stove light in the kitchen. It constantly remained on and on the verge of burning out.

It had been morning when I had first arrived. When I had changed. Nothing but my voice told me I was still me, even though I should've gone back a long time ago. No, I still didn't know what I had taken at Doc's. Haibara could've given me a less-temporary antidote, leaving me to be the guinea pig for the hundredth time. It didn't matter; Ran got to see me, and I her.

Finally, she came around the couch. My eyes still stung and my head whirled, but I could see her better, her hair mussed from the wind, cheeks red from the cold, and lips parted from panting. Stunning. And the damn absence of light wouldn't let me see her better. Not that my sight would necessarily improve with light. She sat down next to my curled form. "What?" I breathed, confused, realizing how big the surface area of the couch had gotten; it had been folded out. Having any normal thought patterns when she looked so abruptly amazing also proved difficult.

She leaned down and ran her fingers through my bangs in between changing the washcloth that had apparently been there. This did not hurt. It could've also been my infatuation that made me feel more drugged than I really was. Maybe I was just really drugged. Her heavy sigh weighed me down even more, but I struggled to stay awake this time. "Ran?" Her name would keep me from slipping. It was a reminder that I had gone there to see her. That I hadn't quite finished yet.

Well. It felt soothing to say out loud, really. And it made her smile if I was the one saying it.

"When we realized you'd be here for a while, Dad got you off the couch and had me take the bed out from it. He had to leave in a hurry, so that's why you're facing the wrong way. Oh, and I just got back from the second trip to the drugstore to get your other prescription since it took a little longer than the first," she explained, all the while opening and closing a couple of pill bottles and picking up a glass of water from the coffee table somewhere near us. Craning my neck briefly, I saw that at my feet appeared the backing of the couch. At my head, the entire other couch sat, still intact. Because of its occupied space, the coffee table sat beside us. "Can you sit up?"

I tried. A sharp pain, the first remotely sharp feeling I had felt that day, rattled up my chest, but I couldn't do anything to remedy it myself. "No."

She leaned down again and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. Her scent was fabric softener and sugar cookies, and I wanted to breathe only that forever. With my concept of time obviously off, her embrace was hours while it was happening and a second when it was over. And then I had gotten to a sitting postion so she could put the pills in my mouth and hand me the water. My hands couldn't hold the glass on their own for more than a second, and it clattered to the floor, fortunately not making any noises that would indicate its shattering. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I should've made sure you could hold it before I let go." Away from view she went and returned with a towel and the glass refilled. She sat back down on the bed. With one holding the medicine, she put the glass between her legs or on the floor, just out of view. Into my mouth went two pills, and a second later, she held the water at my mouth.

"Thank you," I said. Nodding, she let the towel fall to the floor and began moving her leg. It probably got trapped under her foot so it could mop up the spilled water. "I was supposed to leave a long time ago."

I coughed, and Ran produced a light colored handkerchief to hold to my mouth after she watched for a moment. When she pulled it away, it had gotten dark and most likely bloody. "You're staying here until you get better," she ordered quietly, her voice a little jarred. "I don't care about your case right now, but I do care about how you're feeling. Going to pass out again?" The handkerchief was mine from my jacket; the slate uniform coat was another one of my blankets, which had also held the two prescriptions, I figured.

"No, I have a better grip on everything. I think I'll be okay for now. I'm still tired," I told her, "And I'm getting dizzy." To support my top weight, my hands moved behind me.

She finished wiping up and sat back down. Reaching behind her, she gathered my arms and wrapped them around her waist. "I'm tired, too," she said in a quiet, grainy voice, and laid us both down. The sudden euphoria sent another wave of drugging feeling over me. My chin just touched the top of her head; my heart banged around so much already that I couldn't register a thing. Especially what she said next. "Thank you for the flower."

"What? Flower?" Then it came to me that I had brought a small blue bundle of blossoms with me. Where had they gone and when, my head was asking.

Her voice flickered to a quiet coo. "Yeah, the one you said I needed to have because it was the best smelling flower ever? Do you remember? Shoot, what did you say it was called," she trailed off, eventually to herself. By then, she whispered everything. "But, oh, it smelled so good."

"Hyacinth," I said, remembering everything with a tugging feeling that threatened to break my comfortable sleepiness.

Soon, the tugging disappeared, and I sank farther into the bed, farther into her form. Tears welled at the corners of my eyes from sleep. "That was it," she whispered.

"Aren't you mad at me?" I wanted to cry. It hurt everywhere, but I was so happy; I had found something even more blissful than that one sad look.

"Not right now, Shinichi." And I let myself breathe her. I breathed her until the stars in my eyes clouded around the blurry vase holding the hyacinth on the coffee table. The stars were swallowed by warm, peaceful black.

Darkness tipped its hat when I awoke next. This time seemed unnatural for me to be waking up at, of which the digital clock from the VCR read a little after one.

The spot in front of me had gotten eerily empty and cold, and that's when I remembered that Ran had been there. Her spot on the bed itself had stayed warm. "Ran," I tried, reaching out in the pitch for her. The surface sunk then, and something soft and light played over the side of my face.

"I'm right here," she giggled, probably at the expressions I made back. Her eyes must've adjusted by now. Mine only started to, but the fact that they were at all told me I had recovered a little. Then there was the fact I was still there at all. As myself.

Our surroundings smelled like water now, refreshing and clear, and told me it was the flower that danced on my cheek. Then, for a second, it flashed past my eyes, a gray shape tickling my face. A clink sounded when Ran put it back in its glass. She was more at ease now, not as worried and just glad with me there. I liked that.

Her legs pushed off the floor, and she nestled herself back into me. My arms welcomed her and she made no move to stop them from hugging her around the middle. The plush, ribbed wool of her sweater couldn't hide the quickened beating underneath. I smirked lazily as I poked my nose in her long hair, took a long breath, and sighed.

"Shinichi..." Ran's voice was barely strong enough to hold me above consciousness. "Just stay with me this time."

And I did.


End file.
